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TORONTO -- Hundreds of e-mails sent by Mayor Rob Ford’s staffers around the time the civic leader’s crack video scandal broke last May are being kept secret.

More than 743 pages of e-mail messages obtained by the Toronto Sun through freedom-of-information legislation have been withheld entirely or were partly redacted.

A total of 313 pages were severed in full from the request.

The Sun requested copies of all e-mails sent or received by former top Ford staffers George Christopoulos, Isaac Ransom and Mark Towhey for the months of May and June 2013. E-mails sent and received by former staffer David Price were also requested for April, May and the beginning of June 2013.

More than 7,200 pages were released by the city on Monday after the Sun paid the city’s required fees to cover the cost of severing information covered by privacy legislation.

The city’s access and privacy division relied on 10 different clauses contained in access laws to sever the information from the request.

Those clauses were drawn from the Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act (MFIPPA) and the City of Toronto Act and included correspondence with constituents and records subject to solicitor-client privilege.

“Records of a political nature belonging to the Mayor have also been removed as this type of record falls outside the scope of the act,” city officials stated in the decision letter granting partial access to the records.

The Sun is appealing the decision.

Ford originally denied the existence of the crack video that sparked the scandal.

Toronto Police Chief Bill Blair has since revealed that investigators have obtained the video.

Days after the chief’s revelation and almost six months after the crack scandal first broke, Ford admitted he had smoked crack cocaine and had “nothing left to hide.”

Asked why pages of e-mails weren’t made public, Ford’s spokesman Amin Massoudi said it isn’t a decision made by the mayor’s office.

“City of Toronto staff determine under the act which e-mails are released and which are not,” Massoudi said in an e-mail Monday night.